Chapter 9
She has absolutely horrible taste in music, no sense of humor, isn’t very bright and is duller than dirt.
Seriously, I once overheard a conversation where she talked about nothing but how she arranges her panty drawer – for an entire free period.
And it wasn’t just like, “Let me start talking about keeping your thongs separate from your Brazilian cuts and then I’ll move onto something else,” like we all do from time-to-time (don’t get me started on the whole topic of powder foundation versus cream), it was a full-on 50 minutes of nothing but panty drawer arranging specs.
But since she and Bianca and their vampire friends systematically and over time – so as not to make it look too suspicious – killed off the cooler kids one by one, well, by default she’s the coolest kid left.
So now everyone follows her, and she leads them in so many different directions it’s hard to keep up.
One week she’s dressing like a rock star, so all the wannabes run out and buy rock star clothes, begging their moms for advances on their allowance to buy white vinyl boots and pink micro-mini skirts and navel rings and extensions and then, next week, she’s pulling a supermodel vogue with skinny jeans and shimmering blouses and spiked heels and scarves, so all the popular girls have to go buy an entirely new wardrobe.
This week she’s dressing like a French movie star with little hip-hugging leather jackets that flair at the waist and calve-high boots and fuzzy white (ick) berets and gaudy brooches, so gawd knows the town’s vintage consigner stores are going to run out of the same by tomorrow night – and then where will all the pretty mortal things be?
God knows Piper doesn’t need the slight rise in her boot-like heels to give her height, but the extra inch or two doesn’t hurt as she towers over the poolside fence and glares down at me with an almost feral expression in her cat-like yellow eyes.
(I’ve never seen their “real” color, but I’ve overheard the humans call Piper’s eyes hazel.)
“Don’t dry off on my account,” she oozes, literally, the words spilling hot and wet from her mouth as I watch the vile green vapor that is vampire breath ooze from between her lips.
(Yes, vampires have vampire breath and it is rank; at least, to zombies. No, scratch that; I’m pretty sure it’s vile to the entire world.)
“Although,” she adds, dangling a signed doctor’s note in one of her long-nailed fingers, “you don’t want the ink to smudge on this very important document.”
“You got it?” I ask, tousling my limp brown hair and struggling not to reach out and grab it right away.
“Didn’t I say I would?” she asks with a challenge in her voice, pulling the note back just a smidge to tempt me even further.
“Sure, you ‘said’ you would, but…” I let the sentence die off as I slip into flip-flops while tying the generous – and stolen – Holiday Inn towel around my waist.
“But what?” she slithers, backing up all the more. “You still don’t trust vampires?”
I look around to see if any civilians are listening, as if the slobs from “the Home” would ever get up before the last possible minute before school anyway.
“It’s not that, Piper, it’s just, in all my years at Barracuda Bay you’ve never even spoken to me, let alone offered to get me a doctor’s note so I can get back into school. So, I’m just kind of wondering, why are you being nice to me all of a sudden?”
She sniffles, apparently satisfied with my answer when, of course, what I really wanted to scream was, “OF COURSE I DON’T TRUST FRICKIN’ VAMPIRES YOU FRICKIN’ VAMPIRE SCUM!!!”
I count to five inside my head to calm myself, then look over her sleek vampire head to the blinking cross that tops the Chapel of the Holy Redeemer, using it to center my chi (or whatever) and take my mind off of separating Piper’s head from her neck (gorgeous though it may be).
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she sighs, straightening her hair under her fuzzy white beret. “I already told you, getting you back into school is the fastest way to clear all this up so nobody asks anymore probing questions.”
I nod. “Okay, I get that; sure.”
“But next time,” she warns, still keeping the note just out of reach, “try to be more careful, okay? I don’t like to call in favors unless I have to, especially for a… zombie.”
She hisses the word the way most people say, “Cockroach.”
Or, “Puss.”
Or, “Boil.”
My hands are dry now, my joints limber, my eyes clear, the morning racing past 5 now and approaching 6.
I see Piper itching to get away now, see her beady yellow eyes focused on a car I hadn’t noticed before, idling there in the distance.
I shift my stance to get a better look, the flip-flops making sucking noises on the wet pool concrete as I spy Bianca’s trademark Jaguar sitting in neutral by the newspaper box at the corner.
“Got a hot date?” I ask, snatching the note from Piper’s hand when she’s not looking.
She smiles languidly and says, “Does picking up Alex Foster for school count?”
I shrug, making sure the note’s legit before folding it up and holding it tight.
“Only if you’re a petty witch who can’t get her own man,” I purr between clenched teeth, fixing her with my not-exactly-un-scary zombie glare.
Piper just smiles even wider and says, “What do you care anyway, Lucy? You know zombies can’t date mortals, isn’t that one of your stupid 9 laws—”
“8 Laws, Piper, and who says I want to date him? I just like spending time with him is all.”
“Me too,” she says cryptically before stepping off the rough concrete slab that is the pool and onto the even rougher blacktop that makes up the Home’s parking lot.
From behind, without the yellow eyes and blood-black squiggles so visible, she looks normal; well, far from normal.
Who am I kidding?
She looks beautiful.
The kind of beautiful even a sweet kid like Alex Foster can’t resist.
“I guess the feeling’s mutual,” she calls over her shoulder.
Ugghh, and I hate myself for even taking the bait but can’t refuse it as I ask, “Yeah, Piper? How so?”
And she turns, just as I knew she would; just as she knew she would.
And she smiles, oozes is more like it, and says, “What, haven’t you heard? He just asked me to the Fall Formal next week. Kind of late notice, I suppose, and of course he wasn’t the first mortal to ask, but… what can I say, I’m a sucker for the guys who play hard to get.”
I watch her sashay away, her butt cheeks perfectly rounded like an apple ripe for picking, and no wonder Alex would rather spend time with a blood-pumping vampire than a dried out old zombie hag like me.
Still, the Fall Formal?
I mean, I know we hadn’t talked about it, specifically, and of course I would never ask him, but, the way he’s been talking in Chorus the past few weeks, asking me if I was going, who I’d go with if I was going, it was kind of like he was, I dunno, hinting around that he’d ask… me.
And, not that I would admit it to anyone, least of all Dana or even Ethan, but I’d even taken the bus to the mall and scouted out a few formal dresses, keeping my eye in particular on a sleek little black sleeveless number with a maroon under hem.
And… and… now?
For him to ask Piper Madison at the last minute?
I just, it’s too much; I can’t process anymore.
Not one thing more.
I’m still watching her butt when I realize it’s not her butt in front of me anymore, and when I travel from her zipper up past her cashmere sweater to the curl of her fang-peeking smile I realize she’s turned around.
Smiling, licking her fangs, she says, “One more thing, Lucy. If Fiona does anything else to make waves for the Living Dead here in Barracuda Bay, and I mean one little, tiny, stinkin’ thing, you can be sure I’ll take care of—”
I thi
nk of chubby, mousy, nosy Fiona, with the dimples and the hair and the plain Jane clothes and the do-good instinct and interrupt, “No, no, I’ll take care of it, seriously. And without sticking my teeth in her neck and sucking her soul dry, too.”
“You better,” she threatens before turning on her heels and stomping – no, that’s not the right word – before stalking to her VFF (Vampire Friends Forever) Bianca’s car and oozing into the buttery leather of the passenger seat.
As soon as her door shuts, Bianca guns the engine and squeals away from the curb.
I’m not surprised to hear the bushes to each side of the pool gate slither and shake as Ethan and Dana slowly emerge, both holding the ancient wooden stakes we carry with us at all times – just in case.
Dana’s has a pearl handle and a sharp edge, just like her.
Ethan’s matches his personality as well; it’s rough hewn with no fancy handle other than a half-price auto rag he’s duct taped to the non-business end for comfort.
Its point is blunt and worn but he’s so strong it doesn’t matter; I’ve seen him shove that thing through a vampire’s chest so quickly, so effortlessly, it looked like a warm knife through butter.
“Glad to know somebody’s got my back,” I say sarcastically, flipping and flopping toward them as dawn finally breaks, suddenly realizing I’ve been standing all this time in my no-one’s-ever-supposed-to-see-it man-kini!
“Always,” says Ethan, checking out the doctor’s note as I unfold it and slide it over the fence.
He nods approvingly and passes it to Dana, who also gives it the seal of approval from between her hooded eyelids and thin, maroon lips.
“She’s right about one thing,” Dana says as we mount the concrete stairs up to our rooms.
“I know, I know,” I say. “I’ll take care of it, first thing this morning.”
Ethan nods as we reach my room, walking three doors down to his own room to get ready for school.
Dana lingers near my open doorway, handing back the note.
“I couldn’t help but overhear what our friend Piper had to say about Alex, Lucy,” she says, cold shoulder meeting the cold metal strip lining my door.
I stare into the bleak, white, mostly empty room and feel the cold grip of another endless day in Barracuda Bay wash over me.
“What?” I ask a little defiantly, looking away from my cold room and into Dana’s even colder eyes. “Now I’ve got to give that up, too?”
She kind of steps back, surprised, and says, “No, that’s… not… what I was going to say at all. I was going to say, her telling you about the Fall Formal like that well, that’s a cold thing to do. You know, even for a vampire.”
And with that she slinks away, leaving me with the day’s first – and likely only – smile.
* * * * *
Chapter 10
The headline is the first thing I see after sliding the forged vampire-friendly doctor’s note across Mr. Thompson’s cluttered desk at school later that morning: “BREAKING: Zombies Are Walking the Halls at Barracuda Bay High!”
He’s on his sleek metallic cell phone, one crooked, hairy-knuckled finger still up in the air in the universal “wait right there until I get off the phone with this much more important person than you” position.
I wait until he turns around to consult his old school, big square and black numbers wall calendar behind him and slide the crisp, folded-over morning paper out from beneath his lukewarm cup of coffee.
At first I couldn’t see it, because it was right under Mr. Thompson’s coffee cup, but not only has stupid, naïve, has-no-idea-the-kind-of-vampire-beat-down-she-just-opened-up-on-herself Rutherford hasn’t just named me as the “Zombie,” but has also used my sophomore yearbook picture right.
Under.
The.
Headline.
So now there’s no mistaking it: Fiona has called me a zombie.
In print, out loud, and, in this day and age, no doubt online as well.
I shake my head, just shy of trembling, and begin reading:
Cold hands.
Pale skin.
A certain stiffness to her gait.
Could our humble little high school star in the next Living Dead movie?
Only time will tell. One thing is for sure, though: this reporter has breaking, firsthand knowledge of a new “zombie-like” virus spreading like wildfire around Barracuda Bay High.
Who is “Patient X” in this latest outbreak? None other than our very own junior Lucy Frost has come down with an “unknown affliction,” according to her doctor, that results in freezing cold skin and a pale, almost ghostly pallor.
In short, one of our very own COULD JUST BE A ZOMBIE.
Okay, maybe not really, but students are still urged to avoid all physical contact with Lucy until further notice, and to report to their teachers – or the school administration – if they see Lucy showing evidence any of the following signs: hives, trembling, nausea, vomiting, external bleeding, chafing, coughing or, of course, stumbling through the halls looking to snack on your brains!
Although no evidence exists – yet – that this new strain of bug might be contagious, cautious school officials were so alarmed by Lucy’s condition yesterday that they literally barred her from attending school until she could secure a doctor’s note. As of this printing, there is no word as to whether or not “Zombie Lucy” obtained a physician’s permission to attend school…
Zombie Lucy?
Really, Fiona?
Zombie?
Lucy?
I stop reading, snatch the 10-page edition of our stupid school newspaper and stand from the wobbly pleather chair across from Mr. Thompson’s desk.
He’s not done with his call but he sees me, sees the paper in my trembling hands, puts two and two together and slides the open cell phone across his shoulder so the other person can’t hear and stands up, too, saying, “Lucy, I’m sorry about that; it was… premature… to say the least. Not to mention immature and well, frankly, extremely catty. We’ll get Fiona to print a retraction in the next edition and—”
But it’s too late; I know it’s already too late.
A retraction?
A retraction?
What good is that gonna do now that the cat’s already out of the bag?
I ignore Mr. Thompson, who follows me all the way to his doorway but not a step further, and stumble out of the front office, across the hall and directly into the library, where the normally jovial Mrs. Klinger clings protectively to her desk as I stride right past her to the row of computers just south of the magazine rack.
It’s no surprise why she’s holding her breath and covering her mouth; a quick glance at the desk in front of her reveals today’s “cover story” and my beaming, gleaming yearbook photo from last year.
Great, so now even the “nice” teachers are going to be afraid of me?
Stupid Fiona and her stupid headline and her stupid, so-called “reporting” skills!
The library is crowded this time of morning with kids killing time in the last few minutes before homeroom Tweeting or updating their Facebook pages or getting the local surf report (‘cause that’s how we roll in Barracuda Bay), and as I stroll down the line of student desk chairs looking for an open seat at a live computer terminal I don’t find one.
Instead, I make one, literally dumping a timid freshman out of the last seat in line and taking his place.
“Hey,” he shouts with a squeaky freshman voice before I flash him one of my patented zombie growls and off he goes, scampering to slide into the arms of his Gamma Man backpack on his way to complain to Mrs. Klinger.
I ignore them both and Google the term “zombie + Barracuda Bay,” hoping against hope that the online edition of the Barracuda Bay Bugle hasn’t gone live yet – sure enough, there it is, the very first hit I get (naturally), posted less than an hour ago.
What’s more, several other high schools – looking for a quick and easy morning story w
ithout actually, you know, sitting down and writing one for themselves – have “lifted” Fiona’s “scoop” and posted it on their online editions as well!
I shake my head and step from the chair, storming past the still trembling freshman and even Mrs. Klinger as the kid looks from the morning paper to my face and says, “Hey, that’s the girl with the mysterious virus everyone’s talking about…”
I cringe and flee the library, not realizing until I’m almost to my locker that I’ve been balling the newspaper from Mr. Thompson’s desk into a golf ball size wedge of paper with every step.
Like overly protective grandparents, Ethan and Dana are hovering there, tripping over themselves to shove their own copies of the Bugle in my face and asking, simultaneously, annoyingly, cloyingly, “Have you seen???”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it,” I snap, not bothering to stop at my locker but instead storming straight to Fiona’s homeroom class.